


then when I'm reborn

by philthestone



Category: Outlander (TV)
Genre: & sported a large and cheerful gap in his smile for several months at the tender age of six, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Alternate Universe - WW2, F/M, Knew-Each-Other-As-Kids, also we can all agree that jamie lost all his front baby teeth at once, they rly do have the strongest soulmate energy don’t they, yes this is self indulgent. yes this is a mess. no I don’t have regrets, yes? excellent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-15
Updated: 2020-06-15
Packaged: 2021-03-03 18:37:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24730141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/philthestone/pseuds/philthestone
Summary: Claire sucks her lips in through her teeth. If she were a woman who could ever dither, she’d be doing that now. Then she says,"Youdon’t think I’m a Nazi spy, do you?”He can’t say he’s taken bysurprise, but she’s certainly startled a laugh out of him. In the dull light of the flickering base lamps, she seems almost mutable. Not quite real, standing here in front of him; liable to slip away at any moment. The war itself feels that way, at times. Just slightly unreal. ButClaire-- everything had been dull greys and browns, he thinks, until she came along.She and her bright, improper blouse, and her flashing eyes, and her wild, dark hair.“No,” he says, and her smile turns into a brilliant, luminous thing that nearly sends his knees weak, “but I ken yer no’ everythin’ ye say ye are, either.”Four things that never happened.
Relationships: Claire Beauchamp & Jamie Fraser, Claire Beauchamp/Jamie Fraser, Jamie Fraser & Jenny Fraser, Minor/Background Relationships
Comments: 21
Kudos: 86





	then when I'm reborn

**Author's Note:**

> is it still hip to write "4 things that never happened" fics? apologies if this is a mess i just rly needed to get it out of my system. the rating is mostly for language (i love claire) and title is from hozier (as always w this couple. as ALWAYS). anyway, hope u enjoy!!! reviews make my heart glow

**I.**

The little boy in front of her has been crying. This is the first thing she notices, because Claire herself has also been crying. So they have that in common, it seems.

She brings one hand up, palm facing out, to swipe at the sticky tears covering her cheeks before they can be noticed, but it’s already too late -- he’s seen her, and now exists caught halfway between continuing his good cry and gaping at her with a wide-open, gap-toothed mouth.

“Are ye a faerie?” asks the boy, which is very rude of him, Claire thinks. She’d have much rather he’d done the reasonable thing and left her alone.

She does not stop to suppose that as she is in fact lost, this may be _his_ hill, and _she_ might be the intruder.

“ _No_ ,” says Claire. _What a silly notion._ “I’m _Claire_ ,” in a scratchy, raw voice, as though such an answer actually addresses his question. 

“Oh,” says the boy. He’s sitting cross-legged against the base of a tree, glaring determinedly at a patch of forget-me-nots that are growing a little to their left. His cheeks are splotchy and wet, probably much like her own. Fresh tears are starting up in his eyes, and his bright hair is just long enough that it sticks to his face with the wetness. He’s dressed in funny clothing that Claire hasn’t really seen before, though she supposes she’s really in no place to judge -- her own frock has been dirtied and ruined by the wet grass along the slope of the hill, and the slowly setting sun has brought with it a light breeze, which catches at the hems of the damp, filthy dress, making her shiver. 

Uncle Lamb will certainly make a fuss when he finds her again, she thinks. This is the third frock she’s ruined in a week. She’s sure this whole ordeal would have been a lot less awful if he’d only have let her wear trousers this morning, to the Reverend’s house. 

Abruptly, she feels her jaw tremble again. Uncle Lamb was _just_ there at the bottom of the hill, that morning. Claire is not quite a whole grown up yet, but even she knows that people don’t just disappear into thin air.

In front of her, the boy makes a faint hiccuping noise. He can’t be more than six, Claire decides, which is a great deal younger than her very wise eleven years.

“Are you lost?” Claire asks, a bit tremulous, but in the careful fashion she has seen grown ups ask things that might be tricky to solve. She tries very hard not to shiver in the cold air.

He shakes his head, his dirty curls flapping too and fro. 

“ _No_ ,” he says, which would be very assertive if it didn’t come out half a sob. “I’m jest -- I --” His face crumples again, but he frowns on top of it, like he’s trying to manage it all. “I m-miss my Mam,” he manages, and then glares at her with great stubbornness through all the crying.

Claire feels herself sniffle once more, reflexive, and tamps down the absurd urge to smile at him. She wishes a little bit that _she_ could be so resolute in pretending she wasn’t blubbering. She takes a deep, gulping breath and tries again to wipe away the tacky wetness covering her own cheeks.

“Oh,” she says.

The boy makes a funny gasping sound and then wipes his nose against his sleeve. 

“‘re _you_ lost?” he asks, which is very nice of him, she supposes, given she seems to have disrupted his solitary round of tears, and disappointed him by not being any sort of faerie.

“ _No_ ,” says Claire, immediately. Then she grimaces, and shrugs. “I’m looking for my Uncle.”

“Oh,” says the boy, in turn. Then, after a long moment, he says, “ye can sit by me, if ye like.”

It’s nearing late afternoon, and she has been wandering around up here since morning, and the wind is getting colder -- or perhaps she’s just hungry. 

Someone will come find her, she decides. It’s been practically _ages_ now, surely people will notice that she and Uncle Lamb have missed suppertime. 

So Claire says, “Thank you,” and then takes the next few steps to sit down at his side. She pulls her knees up against her chest, and wraps her skinny arms around them. Neither of them say anything for a while, only look out at the gradually setting sun, flashing orange and yellow and red over the rolling green mountains surrounding them. Then he says, in a small, tear-stained voice,

“Are ye _sure_ ye’re no’ a faerie? I meant t’show Jenny tha’ they’re real.” 

Claire finds herself giggling, despite the miserable cold and her grumbling stomach. Slowly, he grins back, showing off his missing baby teeth. The breeze dries off their wet cheeks.

**II.**

He stops when she calls his name, crisp vowels sliding off her tongue in a way that is not nearly as foreign as it could be.

“Captain Fraser!”

She approaches him from the other side of the command tent. Her hands, pale and delicate as they were when they first tended to him, rest gripping each other anxiously over her midriff. Her curly hair has been coiffed back into something sensible. _Battlefield worthy_ , he finds himself thinking, and he stops, mid-step, to turn towards her.

She’s grinning when she reaches him. 

“Ye have need of me, Ma’am?” There’s a smile in his voice, too, one that he can’t quite help. The tops of her cheeks are sweet, and rounded. They’ve stopped behind one of the covered, beached army trucks, and despite the growing dark and the poor yellow lighting, he can see the faint flush colouring her ivory skin. 

“Your shoulder --” she says. A well-practiced nod of the chin towards it. “How’s it feeling?”

It aches terribly, since the strange cartridge she emptied into it wore off. 

“Like brand new,” he says.

He hasn’t seen anything like that cartridge since, not in the medical tent nor on her slender, graceful person. He’s not sure what to make of it. 

Her mouth twitches, whether with amusement or dispassion he can’t quite tell. “I very highly doubt that. How sore is it?”

“It’ll bide.”

“Oh, don’t be such a man. If it still hurts --”

“With the utmost respect, Mrs. Beauchamp, did ye call me over for the sole purpose of a scoldin’, or had ye other, perhaps equally interestin’ conversation in mind?”

There is a moment where her mouth drops open, and then presses back closed, her lips pinching together. Her eyes flash, but it’s the good sort -- the type that makes a thrill run through his fingers, and his throat tighten. Down the muddy road, there are voices coming from the mess tent, and he’s sure in a moment, Murtagh and Angus and Rupert will be wondering where he is. Impulsive, he almost offers to walk her over, asks to have a drink with her. He stops himself in time -- has to bite down on the tip of his tongue to do it.

He should have told her his shoulder was on its way to collapsing completely, he thinks, so that she might poke and prod at it some more.

“I suppose not,” she says, finally. Her cheeks are dimpled, her mouth a thin line, but her eyes are honey warm; he grins in return. “I only -- that is, I wanted to see how you were doing.”

She looks away at this, and rocks very slightly over the balls of her feet. They’re clad in standard regulation issue boots, now, alike to every other pair of boots in the British army -- a far cry from the strange, padded white things that had been on her feet when Murtagh first found her outside their camp, with the odd markings and a covering that looked like a thicker version of that rayon stuff Jenny’s been so excited about in her letters. Her garishly coloured shirt, too, cropped indecently high at the waist, is gone -- and along with it the trousers of a similar fabric as her shoes, and the irregular, dangly earrings.

Jamie feels his voice come out, softer than he means it to be. “Ye healed me well, Claire. Thank you.”

If she is upset that he has been so forward with her first name, she doesn’t show it. In fact, she does not seem to feel anything is amiss, and only offers him a small, gentle nod. She is not yet smiling again, but -- softened. Tender. 

His heart, fresh and youthful still, squeezes.

“I’m glad for it. I think you might be my only friend in this place, and it wouldn’t do at all for you to suddenly drop dead on me.”

“Suddenly drop _deid_ on ye?” He can’t stop grinning.

“You seem to have a propensity for injury, Captain,” says Claire Beauchamp, alleged army nurse, grieving widow, and definite enigma, her whiskey eyes dancing, “and we haven’t even yet reached Normandy.”

There it is again -- her strange turns of phrase. He watches as her expression drops from mischief to something less tangible, and tense, and he shifts his shoulders and raises an eyebrow. She seems constantly slipping in and out of mystery. He feels himself lean forward despite himself, concern lacing unbidden into his tone like the fine whiskey he misses almost as much as he does his sister. 

“Ye havenae struck up an arrangement wi’ Sister Fitz at the dispensary, then? I told the Colonel ye’d make a braw nurse --”

“Oh -- yes, she gave me my duties --”

“Ye’ve already been a great help around the base, Mistress,” he says. Belatedly he hopes his voice does not sound as breathless to her as it does to his own ears.

Claire’s cheeks are flushing again, and once more, she looks away.

“No, I -- I -- _thank_ you, for saying that -- I meant --” Claire sucks her lips in through her teeth. If she were a woman who could ever _dither_ , she’d be doing that now. Then she says, “ _You_ don’t think I’m a Nazi spy, do you?”

He can’t say he’s taken by _surprise_ , but she’s certainly startled a laugh out of him. In the dull light of the flickering base lamps, she seems almost mutable. Not quite real, standing here in front of him; liable to slip away at any moment. The war itself feels that way, at times. Just slightly unreal. But Claire -- everything had been dull greys and browns, he thinks, until she came along.

She and her bright, improper blouse, and her flashing eyes, and her wild, dark hair.

“No,” he says, and her smile turns into a brilliant, luminous thing that nearly sends his knees weak, “but I ken yer no’ everythin’ ye say ye are, either.”

His voice is warm, and he knows she can tell.

“I suppose that’s fair,” she says, carefully, twitching brows as transparent as the streaked truck windows that Dougal has the cadets wipe down each week. But he thinks -- whatever may happen in the next months, he’s never been more grateful for someone to call him _friend_.

**III.**

“Bugger off,” she tells him, on a Tuesday. He’s lying upside down directly above the scratched kitchen counter, one leg flung over the other knee, arms braced behind his neck. By rights it should not be a modest position, but she supposes he does not adhere to laws of physics -- his kilt remains put, neatly resting against the tops of his strong knees, frayed and dirty as it always is. So it’s alright. 

“Ye’re mopin’,” he says.

“I’m _not_.” She is, just a bit. She waves her notes at him. “I’ve exams and things.”

“I could help ye study,” he offers, routine in how sincere he is. The very tips of his hair are translucent; the rest of it is as bright as always amidst the sad browns of her rented flat. Above them, the ceiling fan goes _flap flap_ in a sort of aimless way, although it is only May and not quite warm enough to really need it. 

“No,” she says. She considers the offer further. “You wouldn’t be able to hold the papers, anyway.”

 _This_ makes him frown; it looks sort of funny upside down, if she’s being honest, but she also supposes that if she could hover around in all sorts of untoward positions she’d go for it. It seems terrible fun. 

“I can still see,” he says. “And _read_. I dinnae need spectacles or anythin’.”

“You never got old enough to need specs,” Claire says, which she supposes, belatedly, is somewhat uncharitable of her. So she says, “Sorry.”

“Nay bother,” says Jamie. 

“I’m going exploring tomorrow,” she decides to tell him instead, papers left forgotten at the table, beside her equally tepid tea. Tepid as the notes, if notes could be described thusly. She looks out of the kitchen window, to the cobbled street below, and the muted tones of the worn down buildings facing hers. Inverness is not where she expected to make her life as a veteran war widow. It is too brown, she thinks, and then also too grey. Or perhaps that is just her. Also, her flat is haunted by a ghost. This last part, she finds she doesn’t mind much. She looks back down at the papers she’s compiled for her midwifery exam, and then fiddles with the hem of her least favourite dressing gown. It’s the cotton one, that sinches properly at the waist and is thick enough that she does not need a brassier underneath, yet also too warm for spring. But her other one is sheer and lace, and that would be just a tad improper -- in a rather ridiculous way -- she thinks. “Mrs. Graham told me there’s a hill along the way. They say faeries live there.”

“Mmm,” Jamie hums. He’s attempting to knock over her sugar bowl -- he’s floated over, right side up now, and is sitting criss-cross-applesauce just above the table’s edge. Despite his evident concentration it is not working. She’s seen him do it before, mostly with the few books she’s got on her shelf. One time he accidentally unplugged the Frigidair and she didn’t talk to him for a week. 

“You’re thinking about it too hard,” Claire tells him. They’ve come to learn that there’s a bit of a method to it.

Dutifully, he gives up, and tilts his head back, propping his chin up against two knuckles. The sharp, crafted shapes of his cheekbones look pale where she feels they should be pink, and rosy-hued with life. She’s not sure if it’s due to the washed-out morning sunlighting, or simply _him_. 

“I always wondered about tha’ one,” he says.

“What. The faerie hill?”

“Aye. Ye dinnae think those tales are anythin’ new, do ye? Mrs. Crook used to tell us we’d get stolen away if we wandered too far, when we were weans.”

“Never to be found again?” There’s wryness in her tone. She’s sure 18th century housekeepers are not so different from 20th century ones. 

“Och, to be sure. But I never believed her -- I was sure we’d turn up somehow. Wherever we were meant tae be, ye ken.” He pauses, then grins, in that funny way he has where he’s not quite sad but he’s remembering other people who are dead. “Jen always took it tae heart though. Nearly beat my hide once fer gettin’ too close.”

“Perhaps I’ll find a faerie,” says Claire, looking up, lips pinched back against a teasing smile. She watches him grin back -- predictable. Beautiful. 

They still don’t know what he’s doing here. She’s grateful for it, either way.

“Ye’ll have tae tell me all about the venture after it’s done, Sassenach,” he says, still grinning, and for the first time since knowing him she feels a chill run down her spine, the sort that she supposes must happen around ghosts.

**IV.**

When he wakes up, his head is pounding and the witch is glowing.

Well. Not her whole person. Only her hands.

“Christ, woman,” he manages. His voice comes out cracked halfway through the middle, from disuse.

“From _blood loss_ , more like,” says the witch. Her accent is English, almost obnoxiously so, and she looks most displeased with him. He wonders if he should be more frightened -- one minute he was face-down on the forest floor, barely awake and sure that damned Randall and his men were going to find him -- and the next, he feels mildly like he’s been trampled by his own horse, and there’s a lass with glowing hands hovering over him. 

He swallows. One of her hands is held against his temple and the other against his chest, above his heart. The light coming from them makes the underneath of his skin tingle with a thrum of energy, unlike anything he’s ever felt before. It’s blue-green -- the light is -- like a bright, luminous version of the colour of his tartan or the foliage around them, and it washes upward over the slender lines of her neck and the elegant curves of her cheekbones and the soft, subtle swell of her breasts under her dress. He’s sure it’s making every streak of dirt and muck and blood on his face starkly visible, and he comes to squint against it, he only finds that there’s nothing about this light that bothers his eyes. In front of him, the woman’s sure fingers press just slightly against the tacky, grimy skin covering his collarbone, and they’re cool and gentle, like the soft caress of a stream of water.

Jamie feels his face and neck grow hot.

 _The blood loss_ , he decides.

But his shoulder doesn’t hurt anymore.

“Am I dead?” he asks her. Perhaps she is not a witch, but an angel. 

“I should fucking hope not,” she snaps. _Definitely no’ an angel, then_. “There was a bullet lodged in your shoulder, but I got it out. Also you had a concussion. Also your arm was hanging out of its socket. Also -- actually, perhaps I should simply ask outright. Were you _trying_ to be dead?” 

“No,” answers Jamie, truthfully. 

She looks at him, for a very long moment, eyes narrowed. There are flowers in her hair, he notices -- several of them, tucked away amidst her riot of dark curls. Soft, and purple, with bits of greenery still stuck to them. They suit her -- the flowers do -- the colour bringing out a pink in her cheeks that steals his breath away. 

“Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ,” she mutters, at long last. She removes her hands, her soft touch dissolving into the flickering lighting of the small cottage, and something in his chest tightens.

“Are ye goin’ tae hand me over t’the redcoats, then?” he asks. His voice is careful. She frowns at him, over her shoulder.

“I don’t make it a habit of tossing over injured fools to the biggest lot of bastard wankers I’ve ever met, no.” 

If his throat were not so parched, he’d have emitted a disbelieving laugh; as it is, he only makes a strangled choking noise, and in an instant she’s back at his side with a cup of water pressed against his lips. He feels some of it dribble down his neck, passing the places her fingers have touched, but he swallows down the rest of it gratefully. Her nose is wrinkled, as if she’s displeased -- at him or the _bastard wankers_ , he’s not sure, but it’s terribly endearing. 

Christ in Heaven. 

Jamie wonders if he’s dreaming. 

“You’re not,” the witch tells him. Momentarily, she looks oddly pleased with herself. “You only lost a lot of blood.”

“Ye said that already, aye.”

“Well, I’ll say it again. Running about in the middle of the woods with half your person out of place is no reasonable way to go about your business. I had to drag you all the way here, you know.”

“Ye -- ye _carried_ me here?”

“You were _bleeding_ everywhere!” She looks cross with him once more, as though he did it on purpose, just to spite her. But then she frowns, and looks away. “ _No_ , obviously. Levitation is a very simple cast. I’ve never done it on a _person_ before, but the same principle applies as it does to sticks and rocks and things.” 

She’s crossed her arms, tight against her chest. The fire crackles, behind them; its warmth catches the tips of her wild hair, halo-like. There are herbs hanging from twine along the wall behind her, and the blanket he’s been laid down against is scratchy against his bare legs.

“So ye are a witch, then,” he says. 

For a moment, the cottage is so quiet that Jamie can hear himself breathing.

“Are you going to try to kill me?” she asks, finally, toneless.

It’s not a question he expected her to ask. He doesn’t think he’s in much of a position to try to kill anyone, let alone the strange, gentle-touched woman who evidently just saved his life. But he doesn’t say this out loud. Instead he says,

“The flowers, in yer hair.” She jerks her chin up to look at him properly, and her curls bounce with the movement, the ends dancing in the light like fireflies. “Forgive me, only -- my sister, ye ken. She likes ‘em. Forget-me-nots?”

She doesn’t say anything for a long moment, something uncertain colouring her irises. Then she says, “Yes. They grow on the faerie hill, just above us.” A long pause, anticipatory. “My husband -- he’s dead.”

It doesn’t explain much, but also it does. For some reason, he trusts her.

“If ye dinnae mind me sayin’ so, Mistress,” he says. “He was a lucky man in life.”

When her mouth twitches into a smile, he’s quite sure he’s made the right choice. 

**Author's Note:**

> number 2 is all on @weaslayyy who said "what if claire had travelled back to ww2 from 2244 that would be spicy" and so there it is (love u maya). and ofc number 3 is me dreaming abt the possibility of claire working w other women in medicine a la call the midwife.
> 
> hope u enjoyed!


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